


A Rare Device

by Lake (beyond_belief)



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Fate Versus Free Will, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 18:48:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1176603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyond_belief/pseuds/Lake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is not the name-on-wrist story you're looking for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Rare Device

It's only two letters on the inside of his left wrist, dead center over the line of the tendon, no bigger than the square of Brad's thumbnail. _N. F._ , in firm strokes that get darker as Brad gets older, not even visible as letters until he's fifteen. He wonders if maybe it's something in his heritage; his adoptive parents have no names or designs that weren't inked by an artist. 

"We could find out for you, if you need to know," his mother says calmly, the summer Brad is seventeen, home on break from school. The letters are clear as anything, now obviously letters and not a thing he can brush off as an oddly shaped birthmark. "I'm sure we can figure out a way."

"No, I think I'm okay," he tells her. By now, he's gotten over his anger towards his birth parents. By now, he thinks the letters might mean something. He wears a wristband over them when he can, just to avoid questions.

Until Naomi leaves him for his best friend, Brad is certain that the initials are her first and middle names, and doesn't bother covering his skin unless he has to. The surety of it is a comforting weight, a connection he thinks no one can break until the day she walks out the door. And for years after that, he still thinks they're hers, just that he wasn't to her what she was to him. Her wrists were blank, after all. She could mark them with anyone's name that she chose.

When Naomi leaves, he stops touching the letters for comfort. He stops glancing down at them, stops being happy that the letters surfaced so clearly. He starts wearing a heavy watch with a wide band that completely covers the letters. He starts forgetting that they're even there.

Brad is twenty-eight when Nate Fick takes command of his platoon, so far removed from his prior life that he doesn't even register the match. There have been dozens of people he's met since Naomi whose initials are _N.F._ ; Brad stopped thinking about it after the first six or so crossed his path. 

He's not looking any longer. Life as a Recon Marine has wiped out everything else.

"Fuck, man," Poke said when, on an all-night survival skills training course, Brad finally let loose with what had gone down with Naomi. "Guess I can't give you so much shit about being the Iceman anymore."

Person threw the pieces of the tree branch he'd been fucking around with into the fire they built. "Naw, you can still give him shit."

"Thank you, Ray," Brad replied, and that's the end of talking about the circumstances of his shitty breakup until Ray spills it to the goddamned Rolling Stone reporter assigned to invade Iraq in Brad's fucking Humvee.

It doesn't hurt, not anymore. Now it's a funny story with only a slight sting at the end. In Brad's mind, at least. One of those things that's awful and embarrassing when it happens, but makes a great anecdote five years down the road when you're bumping across the desert and there's nothing else to talk about. Reporter looks sort of stunned as Brad gives his best on-purpose smile and says, "It's nice having friends."

It's a reminder, though, of the initials hidden beneath his watch band and the MOPP suit. The spot itches slightly, as though his skin wants in on the conversation, as though the letters are tired of Brad pretending they don't exist. 

_Too late_ , he thinks to himself, a single second of selfishness amid the relentless forward of war.

*

Their part over, Brad feels a strange sense of emptiness as he rambles around Paige. It's not just the aftereffects of the dysentery, either. His ass doesn't miss the Humvee's passenger seat, but Brad would be hard-pressed to consider the sweltering carport much better. At least there was sometimes a breeze in the victors.

Fick draws him aside after PT one morning. Sweat plasters the Lieutenant's t-shirt to his body, and he swears under his breath as he plucks it away from his chest, trying to get a little airflow. Brad knows how he feels. He catches a glimpse of pale skin, starkly different from Fick's sunburned neck.

"What's up, sir?" he asks.

"I think we need to get out of here," Fick says. 

Brad blinks, and not only because of the sweat in his eyes. He just ran three miles flat-out, his pulse can't race any faster. "Get out of here, sir?"

"This place is a boiling pisspot, and after what happened with Mike, I'm wary of mutiny." His face scrunches slightly, and he lifts the hem of his t-shirt to wipe the sweat dripping off his chin. 

Brad gets a flash of a dark smudge along the LT's ribs, which seem easily counted, before he snaps his gaze back up to Fick's. "That's probably a good thing to stay on alert for, right now," Brad allows.

Fick gives him a tired smile. "I'm thinking an outing would do the platoon good. I'm trying to get permission from Godfather to go visit Babylon. It's about seventy miles north. He's agreeable, since First MEF moved headquarters there, but I wanted to get your opinion."

Anywhere Fick wanted to go, Brad is sure the platoon would follow. "Babylon…" He drags it out, thinking. "Hanging gardens?"

"That's about all I remember as well," Fick says, punctuating it with a dry chuckle. Brad quirks a brow, and the chuckle turns into a full-out laugh that takes hold of the LT for several seconds before he says, "Thanks for the reminder, Sergeant."

"I said nothing," Brad replies smoothly, but he wants to smile, too. 

"Seems like a lifetime ago." Fick squints up at the sky, then looks out at a stretch of brown desert dotted with palm trees and a few armored vehicles with a distant expression on his face. Brad's heard the story of why and when Fick decided to apply to OCS, but that Fick and this one seem like opposite sides of a coin.

He used to think his platoon commander looked young. Not anymore.

Brad lifts the bottom of his own t-shirt to wipe at his face, giving the LT a minute before he says, "I'm sure whatever the field trip, the men will gladly join in. Any excuse to get out of this miserable place, away from the shit and the flies."

"Thanks, Brad." Fick claps him on the shoulder. "I'll see you at chow."

*

Fick gets his field trip approval, much to Brad's silent amusement. The platoon piles into Humvees, in better humor than their last trip but still armed to the teeth. They cruise single-file up Highway 1 behind Fick's lead vehicle. Brad is making Ray drive; Walt and Trombley are in the back as if by force of habit.

Ray's humming some fucking terrible song under his breath. He's still fairly laconic compared to a month ago, so Brad chooses not to mention it for now. A steady procession of Army trucks in a slow supply convoy chug past them in the opposite lane. 

"Can I drink one of these pops yet?" Trombley calls.

"No," Brad answers. He sees Ray smirk and returns the grin.

They follow Fick's vehicle on turn-off to Hillah and drive many winding miles through palm groves pocked with bomb blasts. "Look at that shit," Ray mutters, as they pass yet another blown-up tank. Kids are climbing on it. "Can you imagine that in Los Angeles?"

"We're just one alien invasion away," Walt jumps in, his earnest face appearing beside Brad's shoulder. 

Brad's feeling magnanimous today, the outing putting him in a downright good mood, so he lets it all slide as Ray and Walt debate alien invasion tactics. At least Ray's not humming any longer. They go back and forth for a while, the finer points of _Independence Day_ (a fucking classic), as Brad listens and occasionally interjects. Trombley tries to drop in a comment or two, but is immediately shot down by Ray. 

Brad catches Ray's eye and grins some more.

The palm groves give way to what passes for a neighborhood in Iraq. Brad keeps one eye on Fick's vehicle, but starts to notice the out of place items that begin to appear in front yards. _The spoils of war,_ he thinks, seeing a silver refrigerator and a crystal chandelier reflecting the hot sun. 

"Daaaaamn, son," Trombley sings from the backseat. 

Brad can see him leaning partway out the open window. "Sit the fuck down, Trombley."

The road turns after another few miles, and Saddam's summer palace is suddenly shining before them. It doesn't quite rise tall out of the desert the way Brad thinks a palace should, but the architecture is ornate. He's pretty sure that it was built to be a fortress, anyway, overlooking the ruins of Babylon. There's a broken fountain in front of it, long dry and crumbling into dust. In the highest window he can see an American flag. 

The platoon parks in a neat row in front of a towering blue archway covered in tiled pairs of gold and silver animals. Brad has to think for a moment, but then remembers. Ishtar Gate, he's fairly sure. 

An older man in sunglasses and a fedora approaches them as Fick is trying to decide the best way to start. Brad hears him introduce himself and offer to lead them on a tour. "Oh, excellent, thank you," Fick says. "I can't remember much of Babylonian history besides Hammurabi and Alexander."

"I was an archaeologist," Ishmael says. He tips his hat slightly. "Until 1968, when the Ba'ath party came to power." He turns then, and beckons the platoon to follow him through the gate. 

"This is sort of cool, I guess," Ray says to him, as they're led down what Ishmael tells them is the famous Street of Processions. Dust clouds up around everyone's boots. "Sure fucking beats the carport."

Brad will allow that it's marginally cooler than their oven of a shelter back at Paige.

"Many buildings lie under what you see," Ishmael is explaining. "These walls, here -" he gestures to encompass the construction that is clearly not thousands of years old, "and the battlements, they were Saddam's additions. He chose not to excavate Babylon, but to rebuild it as he saw fit." 

Ishmael's tone is disdainful, edged with what Brad thinks is a solemn sadness. He leads them past the Lion of Babylon, regal still despite the softening of the basalt's lines. Brad can see Trombley's jaw drop slightly. "Not much of this in Michigan, eh, Trombley?" he says.

Trombley shrugs. "I guess it's cool, Sergeant."

Brad resists the urge to call him an uncivilized motherfucker. A few more weeks, Trombley will get shipped to BRC, and Brad will be free of him for at least sixty-five days.

A photo from Ishmael's binder is passed around: the lion more than forty years ago, surrounded by people in Western-style clothing. It's incongruous. He mutters so, just loud enough for Ray to hear and laugh. "Did your one-room schoolhouse teach you any words more than three syllables?" Brad asks him, and hands the photograph on. 

Ishmael begins to recount the death of Alexander in accented but excellent English, gently cadenced. Brad maneuvers around Chaffin and Garza to slide in next to the LT. "You know that in only two years, we've followed two of Alexander's largest military campaigns," he says to Fick. "But I doubt I'll be remembered as Brad the Great."

Fick's mouth twists in a wry smile. "Brad, you should hope that our luck is better than Alexander's. First an ugly campaign to kill the emperor who had staked his claim in Central Asia, and then poisoned to death nearly where we're standing."

"Didn't it take him like ten days to die?"

"There are various theories, but yeah, something like that." He removes his sunglasses to wipe the sweat off of them. Squinting at Brad, he says, "There were apparently a fuckton of prophecies warning him against coming back here, but back he came."

Babylon seems to Brad like the sort of place prophecies were forever being made about. After a few more minutes of listening to Ishmael, he says to Fick, "You believe in that stuff, sir? Prophecies?"

The LT doesn't answer for a while, as the platoon passes around some edge-worn, glossy pictures of unearthed Babylonian treasures that currently sit in other countries' museums. Then he responds, "I'm not sure. Are there even prophecies anymore?"

"There's that one guy always yelling about the end of the world." Brad says it with a shrug, and Fick chuckles. A hot wind gusts through, stirring yet more dust and sand.

"I'm not sure there's a place for prophecy in our current state," Fick says. His voice is mild and seemingly pitched only for Brad's ears. "But had I been Alexander, I might have listened."

The inside of Brad's wrist itches and he rotates his watch band absently. Fick glances down at the movement. "Got some sand in there?" he asks. 

"I probably got bit by those motherfucking flies back at camp." 

Fick grins for real. "Buck up, Colbert. Don't quote me on it, but I think we get to go home soon."

*

Their flight home is a commercial jet, and it's the cleanest thing Brad has laid eyes on in weeks. He resists the urge to sigh as he slips into the window seat, and feels a little bit bad for the crew, given that the platoon is dirtying the plane with their weeks-old cammies. Then he closes his eyes and gives in to the long exhale.

"I know the feeling," someone says as they take the seat next to him, and Brad opens his eyes just enough to see who it is. 

"Mmm," is his vague reply, because it's Fick, and Brad doesn't think that his words were meant to be an actual conversation starter.

He's proved correct when Fick says nothing else during pre-flight checks and through takeoff. Brad settles back against the soft material of the seat and stretches his legs as much as he can. He thinks Poke is in front of him, and Ray is several rows away, so he figures he's almost guaranteed a peaceful few hours to Frankfurt. 

He gets two out of five when he's awakened by a searing pain on the inside of his left wrist. For a second, he thinks the initials there have disappeared, and he's uncomfortably sickened by the thought, his stomach jolting in a way that has nothing to do with turbulence. 

"All right, Brad?" Fick asks, a flicker of concern crossing his face. 

"Fine." He rubs his hands over his face to wake himself further. He can't quite put a finger on what he'd been dreaming. Something dusty and hot. He can feel sweat still prickling along his hairline despite the coolness of the cabin, and he feels the urge to cough. 

Fick takes the plastic cup of water on his tray and sets it on Brad's. "Since you missed the stewardess."

"Thank you, sir." There's ice in the cup. Brad hasn't had ice in a drink in weeks. He crunches a cube of it between his teeth, thinking. He should play it safe and not unbuckle his watch with Fick right next to him, just in case, but the burning sensation hasn't let up. He can use the tray table to mask his movements. 

Quickly, he undoes the dirt-encrusted buckle, letting the watch drop into his lap. Then he swipes his thumb through the condensation on the outside of the cup and rubs it over the inside of his wrist. That helps, and he tries to glance down at his arm in the space between his waist and the edge of the tray. 

Something else is there now, underneath the letters. He rubs his thumb over it again, in case it's only a smudge, some stubborn dirt left from Iraq, but the black lines and curves remain. _Fuck._

Brad needs to bring his arm closer to his face to see what it is. But Fick is still awake and, Brad thinks, watching him out of the corner of his eye. His shoulder is pressed to Brad's, but then again, the seats are none too wide. 

A smiling stewardess clad in blue jacket and skirt stops next to the LT. "Can I get you gentlemen a drink?"

They're under orders to refrain from alcohol. That's fine with Brad. "Coke. With ice, please."

She holds out a cup of ice and a chilled can of Coke. Brad reaches with both hands before thinking about it, _shit_ , and hopes the LT doesn't look at his wrist and ask. "Thank you," he says to the stewardess.

Fick either doesn't look or decides not to mention it. Brad sips his almost painfully cold soda and looks out the window, counts the clouds as they pass. After a while, he feels the arm against his relax, and glances over to see that Fick has fallen asleep. 

That means Brad can look at his wrist. 

Up close, he can tell what the small symbol is. An anchor, with rope wrapped around, the lines still darkening. It's the anchor from the Marine Corps emblem. No globe and no eagle. Brad is almost glad; the whole emblem would be large and hard to cover. This is still hidden by his watchband.

Unfortunately, the meaning seems clear. As of right now, Brad's _N.F._ is the man asleep next to him.

He's not sure what to do besides scratch some of the dirt off his watch and buckle it back on. _At least this didn't happen a month ago,_ he thinks, gazing back out the window at the wispy clouds.

Fick wakes up as they're circling to land. "One third down," Brad says. 

"Seven hours across the Atlantic. That's quality shut-eye."

"When was the last time we slept anything close to that?" Brad asks with a chuckle, rolling his shoulders.

"No idea." Fick sits up a little straighter as the plane begins to descend. "We've got an hour to kill before we need to board the next plane. I think I'm going to go stand in the door and look out at civilization for a while."

"I'm going to piss in a civilized bathroom," Brad says dryly. The wheels touch pavement and the force of the brakes presses them all back against the seats. 

As the plane rolls to a stop, Fick leans over slightly and says above the noise, "Brad. When we're not at work, you should call me Nate." 

He's up and gone to the front of the cabin to address the platoon before Brad can respond.

*

The Corps puts them up in a motel for the night, a move Brad will never quite understand the logistics of. Maybe so nobody snaps and shoots their dog in the middle of their first night back. Maybe so the sad fuckers who don't live on base or in Oceanside can drop their tired asses into a real bed without having to wait even longer.

This real bed creaks when he sits down on it to unlace his boots, and feels lumpy under his ass. Or maybe it feels lumpy because he's lost twenty pounds. Brad gets his boots off and drops them to the floor; little puffs of dust rise up. He sits there another five minutes in the cool air before gathering the strength to strip off the rest of his clothing and walk to the shower. He leaves it on lukewarm and watches the dirt swirl around the drain. Around, around, around, until the water runs clear. Then he turns the temperature up and scrubs down efficiently with the hotel soap. 

He's barely dressed in boxers and a t-shirt from the gift shop - not much choice - before he can't stand being inside any longer. This block of rooms all open onto a balcony walkway that looks out over the pool, which should be closed. He flips the security lock so he can get back in.

He's not the only one on the walkway. Fick is a few doors down, his hands curled around the railing, backlit by the light flooding through the open doorway to his room. "At odds as well, Brad?" he asks. He looks tired, but no more tired than Brad's seen before.

"Too used to being outside," Brad replies. He sticks his foot between the vertical rails and wiggles his toes. "The shower was nice, though."

"Yeah." 

There's a long stretch where neither of them says a word, but it's not uncomfortable. Brad watches the hotel lights reflect off the still surface of the unoccupied pool for a while, then turns his attention to the headlights out on Mission Avenue. It's late. The cars are few and far between. Caught in a breeze, the palms rustle lightly here the same as they had outside Al Hayy. For what he thinks might be the first time, Brad spends a few seconds wanting to live in a place where grass grows freely and trees change with the seasons.

"Do you like sailing, Brad?" Fick asks.

He doesn't start, but it's a near thing. Everyone's a little jumpy these days, it's to be expected. "Begging your pardon, sir?"

"We're not at work." There's a flicker of a smile, maybe. The balcony isn't exactly the brightest. 

"Nate," Brad allows with a small incline of his head. "Why, do you sail?"

"I want to show you something," Fick - Nate - says. He turns back into his room, gesturing for Brad to follow. As he walks in, he pulls his t-shirt up over his head. 

Brad stops in the doorway. "What-"

Nate keeps one arm raised, exposing the thin skin over the curve of his still-visible ribs. The skull and crossbones insignia of 1st Recon is outlined there in black. Brad remembers the smudge he saw at Paige, but quirks a brow and asks, "New tattoo?" even as his heart beats faster and he _knows_ it's not a tattoo.

Fick shakes his head. His gaze doesn't waver from Brad's. "It's not a tattoo. And it's not so much the skull as what's replaced the stars on the right."

Brad nudges the door shut behind him with his foot before walking forward. The last thing either one of them needs is someone walking past and seeing the LT shirtless, Brad moving toward him.

There should be two stars to the right of the skull. Instead, there are letters. 

_B_

_C_

He takes a step back without thinking. 

Nate says, "I was fifteen when I woke up with the letters. Just the letters. My parents, they - they had no ideas. Neither did I, until the Recon insignia burned to the surface, the same day I was puking my damn guts out at Paige."

Brad remembers checking on the LT, not the only guy in the dust outside the latrines that day. "Well, that fucking sucks."

"Then I caught a glimpse of your wrist on the plane," Nate says quietly. He skims a hand over the mark on his side. "I thought - maybe I wasn't the only one?" His face twists in a questioning expression; Brad observes lines crease his forehead. Then it all drops away and his features turn blank. He brings his arm down.

"I," Brad begins, but then he doesn't know where to go from there. Nate's face is still expressionless, the same absence of emotion he would wear at times while surveying the AO. 

Brad holds up his arm, palm out. Letting Nate see his wrist fully, the thing he's tried to avoid for years. "The anchor wasn't there until the flight to Germany, when you saw it. Right before you saw it. And the letters - I was fifteen, when they finally looked like - like letters and not smudges." 

He draws his wrist back to his chest and rubs it. It's a comfort move he hasn't done in years, a thing he thought the Corps had beaten out of him. "For years, I thought they were my girlfriend's initials," he continues. "Until she left me. After that, I stopped wanting to know."

Nate hums under his breath and pulls his shirt back on. Then he sits down on the single bed; Brad hears it squeak. 

Brad backs up again to the door and props it open, needing the fresh air and the sounds of the outside world, then folds himself into the lone chair beside the small table that's supposed to pass as a breakfast nook in this room. Nate asks, "Do you still not want to know?"

Brad looks at his wrist. He shrugs. "Not sure."

"Fair enough." Nate leans back on his hands. Then he sighs and his face contorts for a second. "I can't deal with this right now, so let's - let's table it. I need to get used to being back, and I'm sure you do, too."

"Table it," Brad repeats slowly.

"Yeah."

"All right." He can deal with that. He's tabled the issue, so to speak, plenty of times between Naomi and now. Letting it go again is nothing. Just because the marks are there doesn't mean he and Fick have to do anything about them. 

He stands up to go back to his own room, because he's exhausted, but pauses in the doorway to glance back and say, "I believe the continental breakfast opens at five, sir."

It earns him a tired smile. "I wouldn't miss the free orange juice, Brad. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Nate."

*

Naomi and Tom invite him up to their house a few weeks after he gets back, suggesting they grill out and have a few beers. Brad accepts because he feels guilty turning them down, because they never stopped wanting to be his friends after they got together, because they still both seem to honestly enjoy his company.

He's not sure he's very good company right now, but he says he'll make the drive up as long as he can be in charge of the grill, and as long as Tom buys good beer. 

Tom and Naomi both hug him tightly when he arrives, Tom slapping his back a few times. "Missed you, buddy," he says. "Worried about you over there."

"Thanks." 

They seem just the same as when he'd left: Naomi still sun-kissed with the same wavy bob haircut, still coming up just to Brad's chin when she squeezes him again around the waist, still smelling like she went surfing this morning; Tom with his tan, freckled face and strong smile, wearing the same faded Bon Jovi t-shirt he's worn nearly every weekend Brad's seen him for the last ten years.

Their house is the same, too, still the pictures hung everywhere. His own face stares back at him from several. "Do I look different?" he asks Tom, unable to stop himself from lingering on a shot of the two of them on jetskis off Dana Point last year.

"Thinner," Tom says with a shrug. He knocks Brad lightly on the arm. "We'll fix you up, though - Naomi made cupcakes just for you."

Naomi comes back from the kitchen with drinks, and they spend a while catching him up on all the stuff they'd done while he was gone. Brad accepts their casual touches and sidelong looks of concern with as good of grace as he can manage. He knows they're trying to reassure themselves that he's okay. But after a while, he feels his shoulders start to tense up and his breathing start to go shallow. He has to excuse himself from the house, saying he's going to get the grill prepped. He knows he must look murderous, because he's been scrubbing the grate for ten minutes before Tom even ventures outside.

"Brought you another beer, man," he says quietly.

Brad bangs grill crud off the brush onto the grass. The grate is gleaming. It has been for the last few minutes. "Thanks. Sorry about that."

"It's cool." Tom hooks one of the plastic lawn chairs with his foot and drags it closer, then sits down. "You all right, though? Overall?"

"The worst I came back with was a bad sunburn," Brad replies. He turns on the gas, then the ignition burner. 

"You know what I mean."

"Everyone made it out alive." For that, he's thankful. He presses the ignition button and the grill lights right up. "This'll be hot in a few minutes, you want to grab the burgers?"

"Yeah, sure." 

While Tom's inside, Brad sinks down in the lawn chair and stares at their SoCal landscaping for a few minutes, memorizing the shapes of the new yuccas, the spikes of the agave that they'd added. By the time Tom comes back, Brad feels less like there's an itch trying to crawl up from his stomach, and more like he can stand some human company again.

They've finished eating and are cleaning up plates and empty beverage containers as the sun dips below the horizon. Tom lights a fire in the clay chimney thing that Brad doesn't think actually counts as a fire pit, although they keep calling it that. Naomi curls up in the chair next to his and says, "I want to tell you something."

"What's that?" 

"Tommy and I are trying to have a baby."

Brad looks into the fire and tries not to flinch at the pop of a branch being consumed by flame. He thinks about the little girl dead by the road and wonders who wants to have kids in a world like this. His friends, clearly. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. We wanted you to know. Before it happens."

He takes a long drink of his beer and manages to say with sincerity, "That's great."

"You think so?"

"Yeah. I do."

Naomi smiles and squeezes his arm gently, with the same hand she used to wrap around his cock when she'd blow him. _Shit_. He's really trying not to think like that anymore. 

"I worry about you," she says softly. Another piece of wood pops in the chimney and Brad can't stop himself from jumping. Naomi pretends not to notice. She continues, "I worry about you being alone."

"I'm not alone," Brad replies, an automatic response by now. He figures he isn't. He's still got them as friends, and Poke and Gina, and the people from the water rescue club. Maybe Fick if they ever sort it out.

"You know what I mean."

"I do know." He takes a long drink of his beer. "And I'm working on it, sort of. It's complicated."

Nami gives him a sidelong glance as Tom comes back with marshmallows and skewers. "Well. As long as you're working on it."

Brad figures waiting for his skin to show him something else counts for now.

*

Fick calls Brad on his cell one July night as he's standing in the All Seasons store, staring at batteries. It's hot and Brad feels vaguely sticky; he spent half the day in the ocean and thinks there might be salt crusted in his ears. Fick asks if he wants to get a drink, maybe some food, have an intelligent conversation.

Brad picks up a six-pack of Ds, feels the weight of them in his palm. He doesn't have anything else to do, besides wander the store and marvel at the things he can just buy now, without having someone else get them at the PX, or having them mailed. _Fucking turret_. "Sure, why not?"

"Great." Fick names a place off base that Brad's amenable to, and suggests meeting there an hour.

"That's fine. I'll see you there."

He walks around the store a while longer, holding the package of batteries. Then he goes back to the rack for the nine-volts. By the register is a display of portable jump starters for cars; Brad grabs one without even thinking. In front of the cashier, he adds a handful of candy bars.

"Find everything you needed?" the civilian woman running the register asks. Brad nods and then stares at her evenly until she starts scanning Brad's stuff. 

The jump pack he adds to the back of his truck, the rest tossed on the passenger seat, before heading out to the restaurant. He's been there before. It's a corner place, with a wraparound porch and a patio strung with Christmas lights all year round. There are a few people eating outside. He can hear what sounds like Top 40 radio, but it's quiet. After a few seconds of contemplation, he leaves his watch on the passenger seat.

Nate is inside at a table near the back, under a blown-up photograph of the Oceanside Pier. Brad drops the MCX bag in front of him before sitting down. "Brought you some candy and batteries."

"Thanks." The corner of Nate's mouth twitches. "I need some double-As for the television remote."

"Sorry, no double-As."

"Snickers?"

"Yes."

Nate grins and stashes the bag under his chair. A waitress approaches with menus and water, and says she'll give them a minute on drinks. Nate doesn't try to start a conversation until she's come and gone again, and Brad's ordered the club panini and a beer.

They've all had their sit-downs with the company headshrinker, something that Brad understands is operationally necessary and would never protest out loud, but dislikes intensely. He's sure that's a common sentiment. As if he wants to talk to some officer who's never been overseas about the blood that welled up from the shepherd kids they'd shot. But when Nate leans in and asks in a low voice, "So? How is it?", Brad doesn't mind the question.

"I've been worse," he says, "but I've been better." He stretches his legs under the table; they bump Nate's. He thanks the waitress for his beer, then admits once she's left, "I don't sleep all that great."

"Me, neither." Nate props his chin on his hand for a moment, then seems to reconsider and sits up straight again. This time, his feet encounter Brad's. "I feel like I'm just waiting for someone to pull a gun on me. In the middle of the grocery store. At the mall, I wonder if some skinny eight year-old has a fucking grenade in his goddamned pocket."

Brad's nodding before he even realizes the motion is happening, because he does the same thing. 

"I can't even tell my mom this," Nate says. His voice is impossibly dry, close to cracking. "But I can tell you." He takes a long drink of his pale beer, then shakes his head. "But enough about me."

Brad chuckles. Their sandwiches arrive, and they eat in silence for a while. Au jus drips from the fancy roast beef Nate ordered. "I swear, I'm going to try one of the weird pizzas here before I leave," he says, dropping the last bit of soggy bread onto his plate.

Brad replies flatly, "This place has a broccoli pizza."

"Rudy says it's good."

"Rudy doesn't eat pizza." But Brad's laughing. He crumples a napkin between his fingers, wiping off the tomato juice that's sliding down, then leans back in the chair. "I wish you weren't leaving," he says suddenly. The balled-up napkin rolls a little on the tabletop.

"No, you don't." Fick nudges his foot under the table. As Brad looks at him, he seems to split into two separate people: one, Brad's soon-to-be former commanding officer, the other a guy with tanned skin and hair that's dark gold in the light of the restaurant, wearing a yuppie blue polo shirt that Brad should want to mock endlessly. 

Nate's smiling, and Brad smiles back. "No, I don't." 

"I hope you weren't planning on going home tonight," Nate says, his eyes holding Brad's even as he reaches for his beer.

The inside of Brad's wrist itches briefly. "No," he says after a moment, "I guess not."

The corner of Nate's mouth pulls slightly. His gaze is suddenly heavy, and it rakes hot over Brad's body, rife with obvious intent. Brad feels his skin prickle, a sharp zing up his spine that settles at the base of his skull. He finishes his beer to ease the dryness of his mouth. "I'm gonna hit the men's quick, be right back," he murmurs, and slides out of his chair.

In the bathroom, he looks at his wrist for a long moment. Then he looks at himself in the mirror. There's a flush high on his cheekbones and he hurries to splash some water on his face. This has turned into a bullet he can't outrun and he's in the crosshairs. Out there is a man who said to him, _I'm taking you home and fucking you tonight_ , and Brad has about thirty seconds to decide if he wants to climb out the bathroom window.

Fifteen minutes later, he's following Nate's vehicle down Capistrano. Nate turns into a driveway; Brad parks his truck in the street. The bag of batteries and candy swings from Nate's wrist as Brad trails him into the cool complex. 

Once they're inside the apartment, there is no offer of another beer from Nate's fridge, no half-hour spent watching the evening news while they contemplate sex. There is only Nate walking down a dark hallway to his spartan bedroom and expecting Brad to follow. 

Brad glances around once they're inside. A neat pile of books is on the dresser and a small clock radio is on the nightstand. A suitcase waits in the corner, and that's it. 

Nate turns and pulls the offending shirt up and over his head. The one lamp on the nightstand is on, casting a warm glow. "You still good?" he asks.

Brad steps in and kisses him in response, nipping Nate's lower lip sharply before sliding their mouths together. It takes a second to get the alignment right; Brad's original angle of approach involved too much teeth, but then Nate grips his biceps hard and makes a shaky sort of noise. His lips are salty and bitter with the taste of beer. One leg wedges between Brad's knees for a long minute before he steps back to breathe. He's flushed and smiling, and Brad takes the opportunity to look at him.

Nate's body is lean, the muscles long and fluid. Brad remembers he used to cycle competitively. He's gained back the weight he lost in Iraq, no more counting ribs. Brad lifts a hand to Nate's side, fingertips skimming over the skull and crossbones, the initials. _His_ initials. He shudders and Nate takes advantage of it to push him onto the bed. He lands with a surprised huff. 

"Hey, let me look at your back tattoo," Nate says, looming over him. "I've only caught glimpses."

Brad pulls his t-shirt off and turns over. Nate straddles his hips, a warm heavy weight. He feels Nate's fingertips trace the outlines. "How long ago did you get this?" Nate asks. His thumb makes a broad sweep over Brad's lower back.

"A few years. The first time I had a long enough leave after Naomi left me. I needed a distraction, and pain is always a good one." That's something he rarely admits to anyone.

Nate brushes over where Brad knows the faces to be. "Is this her?"

He snorts, then smiles into the pillow. "No. It's just from a painting."

Nate's hands slide hot and dry up his spine, and Brad is suddenly very aware of the erection pressing against his ass through two pairs of shorts. He rocks his hips back, just slightly, and Nate makes that same shaky noise as before. Brad wants to turn over, could flip them if he applies some force, but this isn't supposed to be hand-to-hand combat. 

He can feel the warmth of Nate's skin as Nate leans over him. Breath on his shoulder, then the graze of teeth. Brad presses his palms against Nate's utilitarian white sheets and rolls his hips again as the fire in the pit of his stomach starts to burn a little hotter. He's almost surprised to realize he's hard, and that he doesn't want to blindly seek friction against the sheets, he wants Nate to touch him. 

"Shorts, come on," Nate says as though he's read Brad's mind, and moves off him. Brad turns over - carefully, as the bed isn't huge. The muscles of his stomach jump as Nate pops the button of his shorts. 

"Jumpy?" Nate teases, in a voice Brad's never heard from him before. 

Brad reaches for him, grabs him by the waistband. "Just - come closer."

Nate laughs and drops onto him, nuzzling at Brad's neck with a slight rasp of stubble. He smells like seawater, sunscreen, garlic, a hint of aftershave and beer. He gets Brad's shorts down with a few yanks, then his hand around Brad's dick as the tightness in Brad's chest leaps up towards his throat. 

"Are you clean?" Nate asks suddenly. Brad nods. They all got pre-deployment physicals, and he hasn't fucked anyone since. "Good." His hand moves away. Then he's doing something with his own clothes, then digging for something in the drawer of the nightstand. His hand comes back wet, slick with lube, and he strokes Brad's cock again confidently as Brad watches in disbelief. 

Nate keeps touching him leisurely for another minute, making Brad twitch at the light, slow pace. "Nate," he huffs. "What -"

Nate grins, swings a leg over his hips, and sinks down onto Brad's dick. 

"Oh, _Jesus fucking Christ_ ," Brad groans, hands coming to land on Nate's waist, thumbs curving over the jut of his hips. 

"Yes, thanks," Nate says, the words breathy, distracted as he works himself down on Brad's cock. Brad wants to slam his head back onto the pillow and let his eyes roll back in his head, but he also wants to watch. He's not sure where to look , though. There's an expression of rapt concentration on Nate's face, a flush creeping down his chest nearly to his navel, below which a thin line of hair starts, leading down to his cock where it bobs between them. Brad wants to touch, so he traces the pad of his thumb along the vein, making Nate groan and squeeze Brad's thighs where he's holding on. 

Then Nate takes a breath and starts to move, doing all the work, fucking himself on Brad's cock like he can't _not_. Brad forgets what oxygen even is as he's caught up in Nate's movements, more than a little worried that if he gets a deep enough breath he'll wake up and he won't be flat, straddled, and gripped tight. 

Vaguely, he can tell he's rubbing his heels against the sheets, that his knees are bent enough for his thighs to be touching Nate's ass. "Colbert," Nate pants, as Brad continues stroking his cock. His head's tipped back, he's looking up at the ceiling if he's looking at anything. " _Brad_."

Brad has a hazy moment of wondering if Nate would have gone home with anyone tonight, if he's the LT's booty call. He's sure he doesn't mind, not at this point. Brad's got his dick in Nate's ass, but he's not kidding himself: he's the one getting fucked here. 

Nate moans his name again and rocks faster, one hand trying to brace on Brad's chest but too slick with sweat to hold on. 

Brad grabs Nate's wrist, stabilizing, and rocks his own pelvis upward. He shuts his eyes against the high wordless noise that escapes Nate's mouth as his rhythm is interrupted. The space he can feel around them seems to flex, then contract inward, and Brad loses the awareness he'd been trying to maintain. Now there's nothing except Nate and his fluid movements, the flex of his thighs and the rub of skin, the tight heat around Brad's cock that Brad has to turn his mind away from so he doesn't come before he wants to.

He lets go of Nate's wrist after only a few seconds and reaches up, pulls Nate down into a messy and gasping kiss, swallowing all of Nate's sounds before they reach the air. He works his other hand faster on Nate's dick, because Nate needs to come before Brad does; it doesn't seem fair to Brad otherwise. 

He swipes his teeth over Nate's bottom lip and his thumb over the head of Nate's cock at the same time. Nate's breath stutters along with the tempo of his hips and his whole body goes tight as orgasm jolts through him, streaking Brad's hand and chest.

Brad would be pleased at the muttered obscenities - Nate's totally telling him off in a whining, panting voice - but he has no time as Nate pulls himself backward and rides Brad ruthlessly until Brad comes hard, his toes curling, lightning behind his eyelids bright as tracers. "Nate, fuck," he groans before all his muscles go limp.

"Jesus, that was good," Nate mumbles. He's still on Brad's lap. Brad touches his sweaty back lightly. "Haven't come that hard in forever."

Brad feels good about that. He sighs and opens his eyes as Nate lifts himself carefully away. "You good?" Nate asks.

"Yeah."

Nate gets up and does something in the bathroom while Brad blinks at the ceiling. He breathes deep for a minute before rolling over and sitting up. He's fishing his clothes from the floor when Nate walks back in and drops face-first back onto the bed. Brad shakes out his t-shirt. 

"Do you want to stay?" Nate asks. Mumbles, really; his face is mashed against a pillow. He waves a lazy hand. "Bed's big enough. Barely."

Brad yanks his shorts up over his hips. He wants to, but he can't. "No, I should go. Got an early start tomorrow."

"Okay."

"I can show myself out, if you don't want to get up," he says, smirking down at Nate. "It's cool." Briefly, he touches the skull and crossbones on Nate's ribs. 

Nate catches his wrist. "Brad -"

"Don't," Brad murmurs. "It's - it's better if I just go."

Scrubbing down in the shower at his own apartment, Brad sees on his arm a new mark. Beside the anchor and the _N.F._ is now a bullet, the 5.56. The pointed tip is even with the top of the letters. At least these things all line up neatly, still able to be covered by his watch band, even if he doesn't know what this new symbol might mean.

*

The platoon schedules Nate's paddle party for a Friday night at Wynn's house on base, so Brad buys a case of MGD, a bottle of Jim Beam, and a vegetable tray. He hauls it, Poke, and Doc Bryan all over to the Wynns' ranch-style house as the sun goes down.

"Sorry you got landed being the DD, man," Doc says to him, grabbing the case of beer. 

Brad shrugs. "Don't mind." He doesn't, not tonight. He knows the other guys are serious about taking the opportunity to get wasted together, but Brad also knows better than to trust himself drunk around Nate, at least for a while. He checks to make sure everything on his wrist is covered by his watch, then grabs the vegetable tray.

Inside, Nate and Mike are standing in the kitchen, listening in what seems to be rapt confusion as Person explains what sounds to Brad like some sort of drinking game. Brad puts the vegetables down and whisks the bottle of vodka from Ray's hand. "No drinking games with the Captain," he says. "Besides, Cara would skin you alive if you puked on her carpets."

"I already promised to only barf in the bathroom!" Ray insists, but he's grinning, and he doesn't even try to take the vodka back from Brad. "Mix me a drink at least, homes."

Brad hands him a beer. Ray dashes off a salute with a handful of cherry tomatoes and wanders away, presumably towards the voices in the living room. 

"I guess it's not a party until Colbert and Person talk about vomiting," Mike says, smiling around a bottle. 

Nate's smiling as well, but his expression is more guarded. Brad knows the feeling. He grabs a beer and goes to see who's all in the living room yelling in ungodly loud voices about the veracity of some awful action movie. The conversation doesn't waver as he approaches, but Stafford and Reyes each move over to give Brad a place to stand, and Rudy slings a companionable arm around his shoulders.

Later, after the paddle's been passed around and nearly everyone else is far, far down the path to wasted, Nate tilts his head in the direction of the back door, then slips out. Brad waits a minute, until no one's looking his way, and then follows. They haven't been alone together since the night in Nate's apartment. Brad knows Nate only has a few more days left of work.

In the dark of Mike's tiny back yard, Nate leans against the tall wooden fence that outlines the lot. The boards creak slightly as he says, "I'm going home. Back East, I mean."

Brad bobs his head. "Yeah?" He's not surprised. When Nate announced he was leaving the Corps, Brad understood it to mean he was leaving California, even if Nate hadn't said so at the time. California wasn't where he was from. It wasn't where his family was.

"I want to apologize for not talking to you before I made a decision about -"

Brad holds up a hand. "Nate, Nate, stop. I would never ask anyone for something like that."

He's sure of that fact. He'd done it once and that had all gone to shit, and he swore he would never ask anyone to share his path in life again. He was all right on his own, initials or no initials. "I didn't think that just because we hooked up once meant life was suddenly Hallmark hearts and declarations of love."

He can't quite make out the expression on Nate's face in the dark, but a hand reaches over to brush his wrist before dropping away again. Nate says, "Even still."

Someone comes out the back door of the house. Brad can't see who it is, but he glances swiftly from himself to Nate to make sure there's a decent amount of space between them. Nate continues to lean against the fence, beer bottle between his fingers. He says in a low voice, "I'd like to see you again before I go."

"In your bed."

"Or yours." The fence creaks lightly again. 

Brad plucks the bottle from Nate's hand and takes a long swallow. "Tonight?"

"I'm leaving next Sunday. That gives you eight days to choose from. Or nights."

"Semantics," Brad replies with a low chuckle. He passes the beer back, their fingers brushing.

"You're good with this?"

"I'm good."

There's a clang as whoever was outside goes back in, setting the screen door rattling. In a breath, Nate closes the distance between them with a warm hand on Brad's elbow. Brad might be all right alone, but he still closes some of that distance himself, still wants whatever Nate chooses to offer in whatever time they have left.

*

He wakes with a jolt before dawn one morning to see his wrist blank and smooth in the pale moonlight. The letters are gone, the anchor, the bullet. He stares at the space where they'd been for a long moment, rubbing his fingers over the unblemished skin. Then he gets up and goes into the bathroom, turning on every light, and looks in the mirror at every inch of skin he can manage. There are no marks besides the ones he put there himself. Brad runs a hand over his lower back, wondering if there's something new now hidden amid the blooms of color there.

He's thirty-two and it's three in the morning and he's staring at himself in the small bathroom mirror, trying to measure his own gaze. Then he looks at his wrist again and a horrifying thought hits him, that maybe the marks are gone because something's happened to Fick. He doesn't flat-out run for his phone, but it's close.

Fick answers with a sleepy-sounding, "Brad? What's wrong?"

"I - nothing is actually wrong," Brad hurries to say. His pulse is pounding and he takes a deep breath to try and steady it. "Woke up and everything on my wrist is gone, for a minute I thought it meant something had happened to you."

There are soft sounds on Nate's end, sheets rustling. Brad thinks maybe he hears someone else's voice; he's not sure. Then footsteps and Nate's breath, like he's moving. A moment later Nate murmurs, "Mine's gone, too. Except the stars. And there are five now. I don't -"

"Me, neither."

In the silence that follows, Brad remembers he and Nate haven't spoken in months, and haven't seen each other face-to-face in more than a year. There's been the rare email, the occasional text message, but they lead two entirely different lives. Quietly, he says, "I'm sorry I woke you."

"No. Don't be sorry. I probably would have called you with the same question in a few hours." Another pause. "So how are things?"

"Pretty much the same." What else can he say, at three in the morning? It's November, is the sun even up yet in Massachusetts? _How's November in Massachusetts, Nate? Is it cold?_ Brad lies back down in his bed.

"I heard you got promoted. Congratulations."

"Thank you."

There's another long silence where Brad is again at a loss for words. He can hear Nate breathing on the other end of the line, maybe water running. "I'm sorry, I'll let you go back to bed," he says finally, awkwardly.

"My alarm was about to go off anyway. Morning class."

"Yeah, what are you taking?" He turns onto his back, watches shadows flicker over the ceiling as Nate tells him about his classes, his professors, Boston. Nate talks and Brad listens, for the next half an hour, and by then, Brad has heard him go through nearly his entire morning routine.

Nate ends with, "I've got to get breakfast now, but hey - you should come out East some time. Have some beer and seafood, go sailing."

"Sailing," Brad says, mostly to his ceiling.

"Yeah."

"And here I just wanted to be sure you weren't dead."

Nate laughs. "I'm not dead. You can call me again, you don't need an excuse."

"Thanks," Brad says dryly, rolling his eyes.

Nate laughs again, sounding too cheerful for someone who has to go to a policy analysis seminar. "Bye, Brad."

Brad says goodbye, then sets the phone carefully back on the nightstand and pulls the sheets up around his shoulders again. He can get another hour of sleep. It's still dark. There are still stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Khan".  
> 
> _And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far_  
>  _Ancestral voices prophesying war!_  
>  _The shadow of the dome of pleasure_  
>  _Floated midway on the waves;_  
>  _Where was heard the mingled measure_  
>  _From the fountain and the caves._  
>  _It was a miracle of rare device,_  
>  _A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!_
> 
> Thanks to [rsadelle](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rsadelle/pseuds/rsadelle) for the encouragement and the reassurance that this wasn't the worst. Additional thanks to everyone on twitter who was excited that I was writing this. I'm not going to lie, I almost quit on this story, but then the morning I finished it I was reading Mary Beard's Confronting the Classics and there was a random reference to the Alexander-Babylon prophecies (in a section not about Alexander or Babylon at all), and that turned out to be the prophecy _I_ needed.


End file.
